Associations Between Grit, Motivation, and Achievement in High School Students

In the present study, we examined the extent to which grit’s 2 components, consistency of interests and perseverance of effort, overlap with future-oriented motivation, relate to other motivational variables including self-efficacy, task values, and goal orientations, and predict achievement in high school students (N = 190) controlling for motivational variables. Exploratory factor analyses revealed that grit was empirically distinct from, and relatively weakly related to, the future-oriented motivation variables future time perspective and instrumentality. The perseverance of effort component of grit was more strongly correlated with self-efficacy, task values, and goal orientations than was consistency of interests. When controlling for motivational variables, perseverance of effort emerged as a significant predictor of end-of-semester grades, but consistency of interests did not. However, self-efficacy was a stronger predictor of grades than either of the grit components. Together, these results suggest that grit is distinct from future oriented motivation, and that perseverance of effort is more strongly associated with motivation and achievement than is consistency of interests for high school students. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)